Im new to the saltwater tank hobby and just started with an 8 gal. biocube. Cycled for 1 week using LR and 2 days ago added a cleanup crew consisting of 3 snails, 3 hermit crabs, and one fire shrimp. The pet store guy said i could get a coral so i picked a cup coral. I fed them 1/2 cube mysis shrimp yesterday and noticed an ammonia spike shortly thereafter. It is reading between 1.0 and 1.5. Done (2) 20 % water changes Nitrite levels are ok so far. Any thing to be worried about? Any advice??
ammonia ??
- Thread starter lexusnip
- Start date
Cycling a tank can take anywhere from 4-8 weeks if you start from scratch. If you want to keep your new inhabitants alive you need to do a 50% water change EVERY time the ammonia is above .25 and EVERY time the nitrIte is above .5 It will take a long time and you will be sick of it by the end butit will be worth it once you sit back and look at the final tank.................... And then you'll get another tank!
Daily 50% water changes?? Ive been told that much water change will keep the cycle from happening!
You are cycling the filter and the decor/gravel, not the water. Even doing 4X daily 50% water changes wont keep the tank from cycling. This is going to be the only way you creatures alive. All invertabretes are extreamly sensitive to water quality and most don't survive cycling tanks even with daily water changes. You might want to consider 2X daily water changes just beacuse your tank is made up of only inverts.
Bear with me, so are you saying i shouldn't be syphoning the gravel bed but rather just getting 50% of the water out? I assume my next problem before its cycled is going to be nitrites!
I went through the same thing trying to understand how to do this too, so I know how you feel! You do need to do gravel vacs. The benificial bacteria is attached to your gravel and decor and wont get sucked off when you do a gravel vac. I forgot to mention this before but the bacteria will colonize every oxygenated surface in the tank and not the water itself so changing it wont stop or hinder the cycling process. Yes, there are three stages to the cycling process:
Ammonia: Keep this below or at .25ppm
NitrIte: Keep this below or at .5ppm
NitrAte: This is when you can shift from daily 50% water changes to weekly 50% water changes. Most people aim to keep this between 5 and 10 ppm and not letting it rise more than 10ppm in any given week. This is how you can tell if a tank is overstocked, too. If the nitrAte in a tank rises more than 10-15ppm from the time of a water change to the next (one week later) the tank is either fully or over stocked.
Ammonia: Keep this below or at .25ppm
NitrIte: Keep this below or at .5ppm
NitrAte: This is when you can shift from daily 50% water changes to weekly 50% water changes. Most people aim to keep this between 5 and 10 ppm and not letting it rise more than 10ppm in any given week. This is how you can tell if a tank is overstocked, too. If the nitrAte in a tank rises more than 10-15ppm from the time of a water change to the next (one week later) the tank is either fully or over stocked.
thanks for the advice, i'll do the water changes as you suggested. hermits, snails and fire shrimp look ok so far, but may lose the coral. Probably wont feed any more for a few days to help the situation out a bit. Any fish combo ideas for my tank? 1 clown with anenome?
No worries. The cycle will complete regardless. In the meantime, you can save as much life as possible this way.
Any idea how many days i will need to do 50% water changes to get this thing done? Then I will see Nitrite spikes? Right now my nitrites are around 1.0 and Nitrates - 20.
Cycling a tank can take 4-8 weeks (Mine are usually 7 exactly) Anenomes require a TON of light, I think it's like 4 or 5 watts per gallon. Also not all clowns will live or even swim in the anenome. Using the anenome for protection is a learned behavior that most captive breed fish don't know. Also they must be paired with the correct host in the wild and not just any old anenome. Size is also an issue, many clowns get up to 4 inches, or too big for an 8 gall. As far as stocking options I'll let someone else answer that as I don't know a ton on saltwater fish for a tank that size. If your nitrIte is already that high change the water! Keep the nitrIte below or at .5 ppm. What is your ammonia level? Also, what are you using to test the water with? (Drops and test tubes or test strips?)